Infosys Prize 2023 winners announced; IIT Kanpur, Columbia University professors among awardees

NEW DELHI: Infosys Science Foundation (ISF) has announced the winners of the Infosys Prize 2023 in six categories – engineering and computer science, humanities, life sciences, mathematical sciences, physical sciences, and social sciences. Infosys award, since its inception in 2008, honors the scholars and experts for their contribution to scientific research and scholarship.

The prize for each category comprises a gold medal, a citation, and a cash prize of 1,00,000 US Dollar, equivalent to Rs 83,34,000. The event was hosted at Infosys Science Foundation’s office in Bengaluru.

The awardees were selected from 224 nominations by an international panel of jurors comprising world-renowned scholars and experts.

“Infosys Prize laureates have gone on to win many international accolades. These include the Nobel Prize - Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo; the Fields medal - Manjul Bhargava and Akshay Venkatesh; the Dan David Prize - Sanjay Subrahmanyam; the MacArthur ‘genius’ Grant - Sunil Amrith; and the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics - Ashoke Sen.

“Several laureates have been elected fellows of the Royal Society, among them Gagandeep Kang, who became the first Indian woman to be elected Fellow of the Royal Society. Others have gone on to hold influential posts in government and academia,” the foundation said.

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Infosys Award 2023: Winners list

Category-wise winners of the Infosys Prize 2023 are given below.

Engineering and computer science

The Infosys Prize 2023 in engineering and computer science is awarded to Sachchida Nand Tripathi, professor of Sustainable Energy Engineering (SEE) at IIT-Kanpur. He was conferred the award for the deployment of large-scale sensor-based air quality network and mobile laboratory for hyper local measurements of pollution, data generation and analysis using artificial intelligence and machine learning for effective air quality management and citizens awareness.

His work has shown the differences between observations of winter haze formation in Delhi and those in other places like Beijing are that the nano-particle growth-rate in Delhi is much higher and happens at night without photochemistry. The finding holds the key to mitigating air pollution in India.

Humanities

The Infosys Prize 2023 in humanities category was awarded to Jahnavi Phalkey, founding director of Science Gallery Bengaluru, for her granular insights into the individual, institutional, and material histories of scientific research in modern India. Her work also talks about the need to see the history of science as much as a history of scientific ideas.

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Life Sciences

The Infosys Prize 2023 in life sciences was conferred upon Arun Kumar Shukla, professor of Biological Sciences and Bioengineering at IIT-Kanpur, for his contributions to the field of G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) biology. His work has opened up previously uncharted avenues for designing novel and effective therapeutics.

Mathematical Sciences

The Infosys Prize 2023 in mathematical sciences was given to Bhargav Bhatt, Fernholz joint professor at the Institute for Advanced Study and Princeton University, for his new ideas and fundamental contributions to arithmetic geometry and commutative algebra.

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Physical Sciences

The Infosys Prize 2023 in physical sciences is awarded to Mukund Thattai, professor, at National Centre for Biological Sciences. He was recognised for his contributions to evolutionary cell biology. His research on complex cellular organisation “could have profound implications in one of biology’s central mysteries of how complex cells emerged from primordial ones”.

Social Sciences

The Infosys Prize 2023 in social sciences is awarded to Karuna Mantena, professor at Columbia University for her research on the theory of imperial rule, and the claim that this late imperial ideology became one of the important factors in the emergence of modern social theory.

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On the occasion, Infosys founder said: “Learnability, creativity and innovation are the ways to navigate our fast-changing world. We must be daringly inventive to tackle the daunting and persistent problems of today. The laureates of the Infosys Prize have shown us the importance of this adaptive thinking through their approach to problem solving – be it for centuries old conjectures in mathematics, translational medicine and diagnostics or finding solutions to societal challenges like poverty. For this I congratulate all the winners of the Infosys Prize and those who have won in 2023.”